Tai smiled as the excitement on his face grew and he disappeared, appearing on a platform seemingly in space, but Tai had no trouble breathing meaning that there was oxygen here.

Tai inspected the place that he appeared in and found that the floor was made out of something resembling marble, and had a gridlike pattern on it. The platform was also circular with four pillars on the 'corners' of the circle.

"Hey, look. This one's interesting," a man said, making Tai turn around and look at the man who spoke.

The man looked like an old human male but was clearly not human. He stood over 14 feet tall, easily towering against even the tallest humans on old Earth. Seeing his abnormal size, Tai was wondering why he didn't notice him sooner.

Looking at the old man with his long, and white beard, Tai wasn't actually scared of his height. The man gave off an aura that seemed to say 'I am unbeatable'. Contrary to the aura that he gave off, the man was wearing plain white clothes that someone from medieval times would wear.

"Interesting? This guy looks plain, as plain as all the other people that come through here," said a man that was standing beside the old man.

The man wasn't nearly as tall as the old man at around 7 feet tall, but that was still tall compared to most humans and Tai.

"Are you blind? Look... Oh wait, I just remembered. You can't exactly look," the old man said, bursting out laughing with his loud, and deep voice.

"Shut up, old man. I have no need for eyes, they distract me. Maybe you should try it sometime, it'll give you a clearer view of the universe."

Tai looked at the man, and saw that he was wearing a black blindfold and was also dressed all in black. Like the old man, he also gave off an aura that Tai's instincts told him to stay away from.

"No thank you, and can you really not see it? He's missing a leg," the old man told the other person.

"Missing a leg. What does that matter? Me, you, and most of the people I know have lost one of their limbs once or twice."

"Yes, yes, but this is the first one on this planet that I saw using ki to make a fake limb, although a very crude one."

The man stared at the old man. "Ok, so he can make a limb. What about it?"

"It's not just about that, he has the best connection with his ki out of everyone on this planet."

"Yeah? Well, who cares about connections and stuff like that, just be strong and you win. Anyway, start the trial, so we can get this over with."

The old man nodded as he turned to look at Tai. "Young one, what is your name?"

"Tai. My name is Tai Zenith," answered Tai.

Hearing his name, the old man turned to his acquaintance. "Zenith... you think he's?..."

"Nah, nada. No way. Don't remind me of that old guy and no there's no way he is. Continue with the trial."

Nodding, the old man continued. "Tai Zenith, because of your primary use of ki, the system has given us the responsibility of looking over your trial. Note that this trial will not be easy. The trial is tailor-made to your strengths and weaknesses meaning that it will always be a hard challenge with no exceptions."

Tai nodded. "So what's the trial?"

"The trial consists of you surviving a horde of monsters using nothing but ki. If any other energy is used, the trial will be considered a failure and end. That's all you have to do. Survive for 1 hour." The old man smiled at him as he snapped his fingers, and portals of various shapes and sizes appeared at the edge of the circular platform. "Good luck."

And with that, the trial began. Tai held his naginata in his hands and watched the portals around him, waiting for any monsters to appear. After a few seconds, monsters started appearing. There were big monsters the size of gorillas and small monsters the size of chipmunks. Weirdly enough, the small monsters were the most annoying as they were usually the fastest, but augmenting his eyes a bit to slow down his perception, Tai dealt with them with ease.

Ki Augmentation has leveled up

+1 status point

With his 41 dexterity, his reaction time was also faster, and that was crucial as some of the monsters had spines that they would fire at him at a fast speed.

Tai wanted to use his Ki Armor, but that would consume a lot of his ki, so instead, he opted for the downgraded version. Instead of armor, Tai was covered in a ki rag. They weren't strong enough to block attacks, but they lessened the force of the impact meaning that Tai would take less damage.

In this trial, it didn't matter how much he could kill, this was purely an endurance challenge, and Tai even considered just running around, but while that might work for some time, the number of monsters would slowly build-up to the point where there would be no place to run off to, so Tai brushed that option aside, deciding to go with the simpler alternative of 'just kill a bunch of monsters'.

The first few minutes of the trials went fine. Sometimes he would barely dodge an attack and it would graze his skin, leaving a small cut, but his Healing Factor took care of the small cut, healing it after a few seconds.

The two spectators watched from the side, watching Tai's every move.

"Hey, why don't I take him in and teach him? What do you think?" the old man said to his acquaintance.

"Why are you so interested in this guy? Why don't you teach my son, huh? He's way stronger than this guy and he's only 5. Ahh, they grow up so fast. Plus, as higher beings, we can't interact with newcomers to the Aether Universe until they reach a certain level."